new york city is a place of problems
by tybeebird
Summary: HUMAN!ERIDANAMPORA X OC. WARNING. don't like it, don't read. . . fixed some typos and eridans accent.


Her eyes flicked from her phone to the clock that hung on the wall, making sure her phone didn't have the wrong time. Jiro had hinted about how slow this certain train was, but she hadn't believed him. "Dammnit," she mumbled, shaking her head in annoyance. /Might as well take advantge of this./ she thought, glancing around the carriage. At that moment they were speeding through a tunnel, people shifting uncomfortably away from the windows and playing with whatever electricon devices that had brought with them. Backpacks and suitcases were stuffed under seats, and somewhere near the front something that sounded similar to a small dog whined unhappily. Under her own seat was a tattered teal backpack and a slender black box that containted her camera, a gift from her brother. "Take lots of pictures for us, okay?" he had said before practically hitting her in the face with it. Such a moron.

Her attention drifted away from the scenery towards the people, curiously studying each face. Near the back was a elderly couple sharing a picture book with a young child she assumed was their grandson, and closer towards the front was an anorexic-looking girl who nervously tapped the window with her index finger. Each person on the train was unique in one way or another; near the thin girl sat a pair of twins, exactly the same except for the scar covering one's right eye.

Directly across the carriage sat a teen who seemed to be about her age, seventeen. He was resting his head on the cool glass, staring blankly out the window. A pair of glases were perched on his face, adding to his odd appearance; black hair with a single purple streak down the front, a darkly coloured scarf and an entirely black outfit. Yet he didn't look gothic, just bored. Maybe a bit sad, too, but it was diffcult to tell with those glasses. In his hands was a camera, quite similar to the one her idiot twin had given her. It was an excellent thing to start a conversation about, but she had no idea how much longer the damn train was going to take and didn't want to get cut off.

Without warning, her phone let loose a horrid sound: "Waffles waffles WAAAAFLEEES~" Shit. Raiko's ringtone of choice, of course. She quickly snatched up her phone and looked at the text her pyschopathic friend had sent her. It was a picture of the white rabbit from Alice In Wonderland, panicking as he looked at his pocketwatch and sprinted towards a train in the distance. Below it she had written "This is totally you. :]" in her odd gothic-styled text. She shook her head and sighed, quickly typing up a reply. "Thanks to you everyone is staring at me, Roo. Thanks a lot." as she pressed SEND, the train screeched to a halt. It seemed they were finally there - lovely, noisy New York City.

As the train stopped, he pulled his head away from the window and quickly slung the camera strap over his shoulder. Everyone was already moving towards the exit, pushing one another as they struggled to get there first. The elderly couple from the back shuffled past him, grandson in tow. The little boy paused to point at the teen's head, squealing something about the colour purple before his Grandmother dragged him into the crowd. He placed a hand on his forehead and sighed; so much for people not bothering him about his appearance. Across the carriage, a teenaged girl with bright red hair waited impatiently for the crowd to diminsh; probably so she could rush foward before the train left to the next stop. Only a few people remained seated, all of them blissfully ignoring the crowd. With a sigh, he stepped foward into the crowd, silently praying that nobody would crush his camera.

His camera survived the enitre ordeal; his glasses didn't. The redhead from a few minutes ago bumped into him as they attempted to exit the train, causing him to stumble into the side of the train. His glasses slid off his face, vanishing to god knows where as he shook his head. "Goddamnit," he cussed, smacking his palm to his forehead. The redhead squeaked what sounded like "Sorry!" before hurrying away, vanishing into the crowd again. He shook his head, muttering angrily as he adjusted his camera strap and headed towards the street.

"Ohgodohgodohgod." she mumbled over and over, staring intently at her phone. It had been nearly an hour since she had sent Roo a very long and overly-detailed text about her encounter with purple-haired-camera-boy, as they had been calling him. She had no idea what his real name was, but she was most certianly hoping she would find out soon; his glasses had somehow managed to fall into her backpack.

The phone began to sing about waffles; Roo had finally replied. She eagerly picked it up and opened her friend's text message, which was mainly consisting of letters in all caps.

RAVINGRAIKO: omg omg omg ARE YOU SERIOUS? WAS HE CUTEEE? 333 I KNOW you already gave me all the details but YOU DIDN'T SAY IF HE WAS CUTE OR NOT and OMG THIS IS LIKE TRUE ROMANCE YOU'LL FALL IN LOVE OMFG NO. DO NOT LEAVE ME.

SARAHEQUINE: calm the fuck down roo

RAVINGRAIKO: NO

SARAHEQUINE: fine. he was cute but cuter WITH THE GLASSES I PRACTIALLY STOLE!

RAVINGROO: now you calm the fuck down

SARAHEQUINE: why should I OH GOD WHAT IF HE'S BLIND HE COULD RUN INTO THE STREET AND GET HIT BY A BUS

RAVINGROO: karma will murder you too

RAVINGROO: I'll have CPR hack the train station cameras and system to see who this cutie is. :]

SARAHEQUINE: okay them miss pyscho. i need to go eat dinner

RAVINGROO: kbye3

She sighed and leaned back, feeling the cool stone against her neck. Her apparment was strange; a roomy area with four rooms, fancy kitchen, stone walls and basement. This would have been perfectly normal to her had she not been in New York City, of course. Atleast it was on the ground floor; apparently, therest of the building was made with normal wood. To be honest, she loved it; it even had windows. There was nothing to see out of them other than dirt, but it was still so unique.

Slowly standing up, she pulled up UrbanSpoon on her phone and searched for nearby restraunts. Immediately, a McDonalds appeared only half a mile from there. Mmmhm... wonderful, greasy food. Great. She double-checked her wallet for her credit card and some spare cash before locking the door and sprinting all the way to fast-food heaven.

..

..

Morning seemed to come too quickly. Her phone beeped persistently, most likely CPR or Roo with news of who the glasses belonged to. It probably wasn't even the cute guy and some creepy old man... or maybe that was just the rotting mcdonalds food talking. Cussing under her breath, she fumbled around blindly before grasping the phone and anwsering the call. On the other end, she could here Roo screaming excitedly as CPR attempted to silence her. "Hello, fucking morons?" she growled.

"Sarah!" CPR's voice, lovely. "The guy who's glasses you have is-" he was cut off by Roo grabbing the phone from him, possibly hitting him with something in the process as she heard a yelp of pain.

"Oh my god his ID is just so fucking cute you wouldn't even believe it!" typical Roo on PMS. CPR must have wrestled the phone back from her; there's shrill screaming in the background.

"Eridan Ampora. Quite a weird one, he's been arrested for sexual harrasment before and apparently was a suspect in a murder. I would just keep the glasses if I were you." he was practically yelling into the phone to be heard over Roo. "But if you really want to give them back, I'll send you a text with his adress." More shrill screaming; it sounded like Jiro had attempted to restrain Roo. "That'd be great, CPR. Tell Jiro and Beno I say hi!" before he could respond, she hung up. Non-shit food was needed at that moment before she felt even sicker and didn't have the fucking energy to track down this "Eridan".

Within fifteen minutes, she was ready to go on the hunt for decent food. Something that was not greasy... Wendy's, perhaps, or a Zaxby's. If then even had fucking Zaxby's in New York. She stuffed her camera in her backpack, made sure she had Ampora's sunglasses, then set out on a mission that was destined to end in diaster. The door slammed shut behind her, sending an empty clanging noise down the hallway.

Fuck. He was exhausted, and it was barely even ten. He hadn't even managed to go to bed until four, and had woken up at eight. The line for the Starbuck's was already spilling out into the street, so it wasn't an option. He'd probably pass out before he managed to get in the damn building. Therefore, the grocery store was his next best option, with their lovely insta-coffee and donuts. It was only a short walk away from the Starbucks, about a quarter of a mile. Everything in this city was way too fucking close, but he was used to it. He had spent too many summers here alone, walking down the street at three in the morning, laughing as cabbies swerved to avoid him and blasted their horns. It was a horribly addicting habit, one that hadn't hurt him enough to make him stop.

The grocery store was practically dead, one cashier dozing off while reading a magazine, while the others boredly chatted on cell phones or played with iPods. There seemed to be an extremely limited amount of shoppers, including one that caught his eye immediately; she was trying to figure out how to work the coffee machine, a white & purple peruvian hat covering what looked like flaming red hair exactly like the train girl's.

He sighed and shook his head; there was no way it was her. There were thousands of people in the city, and the chances of seeing her here were extremely slim. It was one of the worst places in the city, only liked for the coffee and Starbucks. Anyone with half a brain would stay out of there - excluding himself and anyone who could haul ass extremely quickly. He moved fowards, trying his best to ignore her. Get coffee. Locate donuts. Pay for. Leave. A simple four-step plan that was completely ruined when she turned towards him and timidly questioned him.

"Do you think you could show me how to work this? I can't quite figure it out." Oh god. It was most certainly train girl, with those freakishly bright blue eyes and confused look. He took a deep breath and forced himself to smile. "It's just like a soda machine; pick the kind of coffee you wwant, get the size of cup you want then fill it up. Add cream or wwhatevver shit you want with it." Gahhh. Why was he even bothering to tell her this? He could easily pretend he was deaf, or the infamous no hablo ingles. But it just seemed wrong to piss her off, or ignore her; there was something about her. Perhaps it was the eyes, or the fact she was one of the tallest girl's he'd ever seen; atleast 6'5, with a scrawny frame to match.

She nodded and smiled back. "Thanks. I'm new to the city and everything here is just so different!" her accent seemed like a smooth blend of english and southern; not something you heard every day. It didn't sound bad, either, just unusual. And being either of those would easily explain the red hair, but not those freaky eyes.

It seemed to take her a minute to remember him - mysterious guy on the train with the fancy camera and purple streak. He was even cuter up close. Quickly finishing with the coffee, she stepped away from the machine to let him get his as she took a sip. The effects of coffee on naturally hyperactive people are not pretty; the sparks flew in her brain and she immediately thought of a plan to give him his glasses back. He was getting one of the extra large cups, so it would take a minute for him to finish filling it up - more than enough time.

She pulled the glasses out of her backpack and unfolded them before taking a careful step fowards, coffee in one hand and glasses in the other. She shoved them ungracefully - and painfully - into his face before turning and walking away with her coffee, towards the bakery isle. Behind her, she heard a confused "Wwhat the?", obviously from him. "Slow reaction." she mumbled, shaking her head.

And then he turned and started to follow her towards the bakery isle. She had no way of knowing he was only going to get some donuts, like her; she thought he was going to chase her. So she did the stupidest thing possible. She darted into the cereal isle, sprinted down it and hid behind a lize-sized cut out of a fish. This would have worked quite well, had he actually been following her; instead, she ended up drawing attention to herself with the sudden movement and gained a stalker. Hearing his footsteps change direction, she quickly moved away from the sign and decided that she could just sprint to the bakery, grab a box of donuts and sprint to the check out. A more reasonable part of her whined about how stupid this entire thing was, but she ignored it. All caught up in the moment of running away from a cute guy. Lovely.

He had no idea whatsoever about what she was doing. Sprinting away from a fish cut out - what the hell was she doing behind it in the first place? - towards the bakery, as if it was a damn marathon. Whatever. Train girl could be weird as she wanted; but it was so tempting to play along. Making sure the lid on his coffee cup was on securely, he broke into a slow jog after her.

Ohfuck. He was following her, in her mind. She had reached the bakery fairly quickly and swiftly looked for a box of glazed donuts - if only they were near the top, not the very bottom. She crouched down and grabbed them, unaware of how close he was already. Box in hand, she stood up and turned towards the checkout, prepared to sprint, when a slender fingers wrapped around her wrist.

"Before you go sprint off again, do you think I could havve your number?"

She blinked, blushing slightly. What the hell? She hardly even knew him, but what the fuck. It wouldn't kill her to give him her number. "Uh, sure." she said, sounding small and timid. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up his contacts screen. "Here, could you type it in? I'm no good with the keyboard on this." he said, holding it out to her. It was a nice iPhone, probably the fourth version of it. She nodded and quickly put her number in, along with her name; Sarah Gymfyre.

Handing it back to him, she felt her cheeks burn a more obvious shade of pink. Shit. Good job, Sarah, you just gave your phone number out to someone who's been arrested for sexual harassment. You should win an award for being so goddamn stupid. He smiled and nodded, placing it back in his phone. "I'm Eridan, by the wway. Eridan Ampora." he streched out his hand, obviously for a handshake.

Cheeks still burning, she firmly grasped his hand and shook it. "A weak handshake makes you seem like a unstable person," Beno had always said. Practically dislocating people's wrist from their hands had quickly become a habit after that. Stupid vampire, teaching teenager girls dangerous habits. Eventually it was going to cause problems.

He let go of her hand, blushing nearly the same shade as her, if not more. "I guess the least I can do now is buy you the coffee and donuts, since I just chased you around the grocery store and got your number." he muttered, sticking his hands in his pockets. She giggled and nodded, obviously amused by this. "I guess I'll get the most donuts I can, then."

|| END ||

**um yeah that was really shitty. sorry you read it. ._. the oc's mentioned are mine and my sisters. soo yeah i guess that's it. **


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